


Defeating Dysphoria

by AspenCe



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Coming Out, Everyone is nice, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Deceit | Janus Sanders, Misgendering, Other, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, but unintentional, it/its pronouns, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27110509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AspenCe/pseuds/AspenCe
Summary: Deceit is gender-fluid. Not that anyone knows.Yet.In other words, they find its pronouns for the day, dress up, and come out to everyone in the middle of an extremely stupid, avoidable crisis.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 99





	Defeating Dysphoria

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think there's any trigger warnings necessary, but I guess if you don't like it/its pronouns don't read?

“His name isn’t Deceit. He isn’t in his room,” Deceit tried, standing in front of the mirror. A huff, and a wrinkled nose. “Yes, that’s _totally_ right. Moving on, then. Her name isn’t Deceit. She isn’t in her room.” Deceit broke into a coughing fit - mainly to cover up h-th-s- the gagging and laughter bubbling up in… Deceit’s throat. _Clearly a perfect fit._

“Okay, let’s not try this again.” A slight smile to cover up growing annoyance. “Their name isn’t Deceit. They aren’t in their room.” It wasn’t quite right, it felt a little too… cottony? _Curse my synesthesia… lie detector… thing._ “Amazing. Zir name isn’t Deceit. Ze isn’t in zir room.” _Definitely that one, too._ “Fine. Let’s have it your way then, gender identity.”

Deceit turned away from the mirror and strode to the other end of the room, stopping in front of the whiteboard. With a wave of the hand, the failed plot to get Thomas to ditch his subtly homophobic friend disappeared and Deceit got to writing down pronouns, with characteristic, nearly indecipherable cursive. Deceit excluded all the ones already proven to not work, meaning that the whiteboard was soon covered in neopronouns.

“Xis name isn’t Deceit.” Yep. “Faer name isn’t Deceit.” Definitely. “Eir name isn’t Deceit.” Maybe not. “Ser name isn’t Deceit.” Yes. “It’s name isn’t Deceit.” Pause.  _ Not exactly.  _ “Vis name isn’t Deceit.” Absolutely. “Kir name isn’t Deceit.” Indubitably. “Per name isn’t Deceit.” Perfect. “Ceir name isn’t Deceit.” Ugh. “Fleur name isn’t Deceit. Nir name isn’t Deceit. Xyr name isn’t Deceit and xe isn’t getting fed up with xyr stubborn gender. Cir name isn’t Deceit and ce isn’t getting frustrated in the  _ least.  _ Lyz name isn’t Deceit and ly isn’t running out of pronouns. Drix name isn’t Deceit and drey isn’t getting desperate. One’s name isn’t Deceit. Teru name isn’t Deceit. Ber name isn’t Deceit. Thons name isn’t Deceit. For  _ heaven’s sake,  _ foer name isn’t Deceit!” 

Not a  _ single one  _ of them worked. Twenty-five pronouns and none of them clicked. Well, “they” and “it” were the closest to working… perhaps…? “It’s name isn’t Deceit. They’re not in its room and they don’t want this to work.” 

It tasted like pineapple. Crystallized pineapple. Deceit’s shoulders relaxed and they sighed in relief - it didn’t know what they would do if it didn’t like any of them. It hesitated before wiping away the pronouns on the whiteboard.  _ It doesn’t really matter, though. It’s not like anyone knows I’m genderfluid anyways.  _

For some reason, that bothered them. It was  _ Deceit.  _ Their whole purpose was to deceive people, to lie and keep things away, to preserve the self in the best way it knew how. It shouldn’t have mattered to them that Remus regularly mentioned its reproductive functions - why couldn’t they handle saying the words? - and it shouldn’t have mattered that every time it showed up, Virgil would demand, “What is  _ he  _ doing here!?” It shouldn’t have mattered. The others didn’t need to know that they weren’t cisgender.  _ Thomas  _ didn’t need to know - that would just lead to an entirely unnecessary existential crisis. 

But it couldn’t hurt to indulge in a little self-care. That was, after all, a key part of their whole function. 

Deceit turned to their closet, which was approximately the size of their bedroom, just slightly smaller. It had enough outfits to impress Roman, which was certainly saying something - or it would if Roman had ever seen it. Anyways, it had hundreds of different clothing items, and in the back of the room they had a sewing machine, boxes of fabrics and buttons and ribbons, and scissors, zippers, mannequins; basically everything necessary to create whatever caught its fancy.

For now, they contented itself with perusing the rows of dresses, suits, casual attire, and costumes they’d created over the years, running its hand along the fabrics and enjoying the sensation of each giving way, swishing, and falling back into place. They felt incredibly androgynous at the moment, so it didn’t linger on the dresses or the more masculine sections, but rather on the other rows.

When they came back out, it was wearing a golden-yellow crop-top with their symbol on the front, except much larger and in black; dark gray skinny jeans - in good condition, none of those purposeful rips - that were just the right amount of tight and loose; spiked black boots with yellow laces and highlights; and a pair of black and gray cloth wrist cuffs with intricate designs of snakes with little topaz eyes weaving around each other. 

Deceit felt natural, confident,  _ good.  _ The only thing it was missing was their makeup, which it was going to remedy as soon as they reached its vanity. 

It had taken a long time for them to learn how to use cosmetics - it had been apprehensive, at first, because of the golden-green scales that covered the left side of their face, down their neck, and wrapping around its chest and left arm, all the way down to their hands. It took months of practicing for hours every day, watching YouTube tutorials and experimenting on itself, before they could even consider itself half  _ decent.  _

Now, it knew they were better at it than anyone else it knew, and they always wore a layer of subtle makeup to smooth out its face and soothe their dysphoria. But today… Deceit was definitely going for something  _ visible.  _ It started with primer, working carefully and meticulously around their scales, then moving on to foundation and concealer. It blended it together expertly; the color matched their skin tone perfectly, if not a little darker, and the way it applied the makeup made it look natural and yet smooth and attractive. They went in with light brown-red blush on their human side, going back with a tiny brush to apply the same in between its scales, and went on to highlights and contours. 

Next came the eyeshadow. Because the skin around its snake eye was red and somewhat puffy, they couldn’t do much on that side, but on its human side? They could do whatever they wanted. It chose a glittery gold for the eyelid - something they could do for both eyes - and then decided to make it fade to a pink wing that faded into the skin. They drew a darker gold into the crease of its eyes, and lightly dusted pink in the corner of their right eye and below it. Then, they picked up one of its lighter maskaras and thickened their eyelashes, upper lid, lower lid, second eye.

Finally, it opened their lipstick drawer and considered a few different colors before deciding on black, picked up its gold lip gloss, and found their pencil. When it was done, they had perfectly shaped black lips with a gold sheen, and it could proudly say - truthfully - that they had never been more proud of its skill with lipstick. 

They stood up - only to catch a glimpse of its woefully plain nails, and sit back down again. They started cleaning up the area, washing its brushes and closing various containers, putting everything back the way they were supposed to be. 

Then they started painting its nails, alternating from gold to black. They weren’t as good at painting nails as it was with makeup, which was a constant source of mild dissatisfaction, but they were decent at it. The only way someone would be able to show them up would be if they added designs to their nails; Deceit could only do solid colors.

Finally, it was done. They felt better than it had in a long time, and they knew that it looked good, which made them feel a rush of euphoria that was  _ not at all becoming of a villain.  _

“Good thing I’m  _ definitely _ a villain, then,” they declared, smirking at its reflection. 

They spent the next two hours or so just lounging in its deceptively comfortable armchair, reading a book by a renowned philosopher about the ethics of classism versus idealism, and during that time they forgot about its appearance, because it simply felt so natural.

That was the only reason they didn’t snap itself into their “usual” outfit when it felt the semi-familiar tug that told them that Thomas was summoning it. 

When they teleported into Thomas’ living room, standing next to Logan, it only realized what they were wearing when whatever conversation the others had been having came to a screeching halt and everyone’s eyes were drawn to it. 

Remus was the first to break the silence, with a tilted head and a curious, “Record scratch?” His eyes wandered unashamedly up and down Deceit, and came to a stop at their eyes as his eyebrows raised and he started to grin. “Wow, Double-Dee, I didn’t know you were such a hot punk!”

Deceit - while internally flailing about like a drowning pigeon - raised their own eyebrows in a way that said “and that matters… why?” It rolled their eyes and turned to Thomas. “You needed me?”

“No, we  _ don’t need him, _ Thomas,” Virgil hissed. Deceit flinched, but pretended that it didn’t and kept their eyes on its host’s. 

Thomas looked conflicted, but he was slowly coming back to himself and he started, “Well… we were just talking about what to do about… Kim.”  _ Ah, the homophobic friend.  _ They hoped he was finally considering shoving the asshole down a flight of stairs. “Virgil - ” the anxious side hissed when he was mentioned, “is worried that she won’t take our coming out well, and Roman - ” said side was still staring at Deceit, “wants to get it over with. Logan thinks that we should do it, Patton thinks we don’t need to, and Remus…”

“ - wants us to introduce her to Nico and give her a first row seat to a make-out sesh!” Remus interrupted gleefully. Thomas sighed. “That.”

Deceit blinked. “Geez, Thomas, just knock on her door and say you’re gay. If she reacts badly you  _ definitely  _ want her as a friend.”

“Finally,” Logan muttered next to them, accompanied with a sigh. 

But Deceit could tell that Thomas was still hesitant, and a plan was formulating in its mind. They smirked. “Look, it’s totally harder than you think.” It turned to face Logan and grinned wider, waving a hello at the logical side. “Hello, sir. I am gender-fluid and attracted to men.”

“Salu - wait, wha - y - what?” Logan fumbled, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, even as understanding dawned on him.

“Genderfluid?” Patton repeated curiously. 

Virgil was just staring at them uncomprehendingly, while Roman frowned slightly and Remus cheered, “I knew it! I knew you were way cooler than a slimy-snakey-cis-boy!”

“What are your pronouns?” Roman asked, unusually somber, and Deceit couldn’t detect a lie in his tone.

“They stay the same all the time,” it lied. “Today, it’s  _ definitely  _ not it and they.”

“You have my word that I shall endeavor to use them,” the fanciful side promised, and Patton nodded emphatically. Deceit felt a surge of euphoria rush over them, and it barely hid their smile. 

“I’m confused, a little, but I’m really happy for you, Deceit! But seriously guys - I mean, guys, and Deceit - what do I do about Kim?” Thomas interjected.

The deadpan look Deceit gave him was enough to send him melting into a ball of shame as deep as the Earth’s core. 


End file.
